[mritech75]

Hi there everyone-being a newbie I wanted to know everyone's opinion on how difficult it is to play different types of music. Rock vs. Blues vs. Metal vs. Country vs. Jazz. I'm mostly interested in learning classic rock and blues and some hard rock and metal. Do metal players tend to be sloppier players? Or metal just allows you to be sloppier? sorry I may be way off-not intended to offend anyone such as metal players. I just wondered if a particular type of music was easier to learn/play than another. Of course I could probably learn a few chords and play country if I wanted. Thanks guys/gals! Mark

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by johnnydoxx

...So, to sort of pertain to the topic of this thread - it's not chicanery to use the effects to make your sound presentable, especially if they let other aspects shine. And you don't need to be Eric Clapton to get in front of the lights.

I hope that's not how I came off in my original post. I'm certainly not a guitar > cord > amp purist (even though it IS refreshing to play that way sometimes). Effects definitely are useful and enhance the sound when used judiciously, and I don't mean to infer that everybody who uses distortion or other effects is a bad player. Of the country guitarists I named above, Brad Paisley uses several different effects (most notably OD, delay and compression, with some amp switching thrown in), and Brent Mason has a pedalboard that is absolutely unbelievable - It must take two roadies just to haul that thing! My point was just that you definitely can hide/mask mistakes with a lot of distortion and effects. When you crank the gain up high enough, everything just kind of mushes together in that "fuzz" sound, and mistakes don't stand out like they do when you're playing 'clean'.

The point I was making was in terms of the original poster's question as to what genre is "easier" to learn/play. IMO, playing drop-D power chords drowned in distortion, delay and flanger is a lot easier (and easier to sound good) than clean jazz comping/soloing or country picking. If I were going for quick and easy, I'd much rather try to learn a Nirvana song than a jazz standard!

[mritech75]

Thank you for your input, Stratrat, as well as everyone else that took the time to post! Good info, for us noobs!(newbie)

[johnnydoxx]

Stratrat- I didn't word it in a very clear manner, I can see now. I was making similar points to yours: there are short-term ways to play 'good enough to be OK' in any genre, and effects can help. Didn't mean to make any implication that your comments were putting someone down.

[JessThrasher]

Every style has its own easy's and hard's. I've been playing metal for while now and I started with the easier riffs. I can't do any of that fancy shred type stuff, but still. It doesn't matter, go with what you like. I"m sure you can find easy and hard stuff in whatever you like.

[mritech75]

thanks hermanli......you have some cool favorites in your signature.......that's what i had in mind anyway...........love a song and go after it! how do you remember where you're going when you play, say, a blues song with all those scales and improvising? seems like it would be impossible to remember all those notes!

[JessThrasher]

Even when I was learning Steve Vai's Halo 2 Theme song, I learnt it first on clean even though the real thing is all effect-drowned. No matter whether you're going to thrash or chicken-pick, always do it CLEAN untill you can get it perfect. I even do all my 2 hand tapping stuff CLEAN before distorting it. Yes, tapping clean sounds yucky, but it will help the distorted stuff sound better.

[mritech75]

good advice, thanks!

[JessThrasher]

I personally usually like to thrash, but even though...I'm not very good at guitar at all!!! I'm lazy too! What you play does NOT really determine your skill. Smoke on the water used to be considered a metal riff (it might still be), but its so easy to play!